


Not a Creature was Stirring

by mldrgrl



Series: Little Will Universe [3]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Universe, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Family Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-15
Updated: 2016-12-15
Packaged: 2018-09-08 16:10:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8851420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mldrgrl/pseuds/mldrgrl
Summary: Written by request for a MSR Christmas story in a Little Will universe.





	

 

 

Mulder curses under his breath as the tape he’s working with somehow wraps itself over his finger and sticks to itself.  He holds a partially wrapped present closed under his hand and peels the sticky tape from his finger and quickly grabs a new one.  The last flap of the wrapping paper gets sealed quickly and he sighs with relief.  A plastic bag of bows sits on his desk.  He sifts through them and selects a pearly white one the size of a silver dollar because he likes how it looks against the silver wrapping paper.

 

There’s a soft knock on the door and he slides the small box into his desk drawer before calling out to come in.  Scully shuffles in wearing white flannel pajamas and a blue robe.  She’s got slippers on her feet and a mug of something steaming in her hand.

 

“Is the child nestled all snug in his bed?” he asks, sliding a LEGO set to the middle of his desk to begin wrapping.

 

“Down for the count,” she answers, “though, I highly doubt visions of sugarplums are dancing in his head.”

 

“Guess I owe you ten bucks since it’s still before midnight.”

 

“Pay up,” she says, leaning back against his desk and holding her palm out to him expectantly.

 

He slaps her hand and bends his head to sniff her mug.  “Hot chocolate?”

 

“Mmhm.

 

“No mini marshmallows?”

 

“We're out.  Want some?”

 

“Nah.  I’m on the last one.”  He shakes the unwrapped LEGO box and searches for the scissors somewhere on his desk under the unrolled wrapping paper.

 

She blows on her hot chocolate before she sips at it and then pushes herself away from the desk and puts the mug down on a coaster on a shelf of Mulder’s bookcase.  She stands behind his chair and drapes her arms over his shoulders and rests her chin on his head. She watches as he wraps up the last of Will’s presents in paper decorated with polar bears in santa hats.  When he finishes the wrapping, he affixes a label on the front and writes ‘To: Will From: Santa’ on it.

 

“Done,” he says.

 

“I need your help with a few last things and then we can go to bed.”  She runs a hand back over his head through his hair and pushes away from him.

 

Mulder grabs a small stack of presents sitting on the couch in the study and Scully grabs her hot chocolate.  He follows her out to the living room and they both work to arrange the assortment of gifts under the tree and in Will’s Christmas stocking.  Purposefully, Mulder leaves one of the larger gifts behind in the study to secretly retrieve the small box from his desk.  When Scully isn’t looking, he slips the gift into her stocking.

 

“Done?” Mulder asks.

 

“No, hang on.”  She bends over the coffee table and picks up one of the chocolate chip cookies on a plate to take a bite out of it.

 

“Hey, those are for Santa,” he says.

 

“Exactly.”

 

Mulder swipes the remaining two cookies off the plate and shoves one in his mouth as Scully tries unsuccessfully to take it away from him.  She wipes cookie crumbs from her mouth, chuckling.

 

“Mulder, you’re not supposed to eat them all, just a bite.”

 

“Santa’s hungry.”

 

“Santa has to eat cookies at every boy and girl’s house.”

 

“How do you think he got so fat?”  He pops the other cookie into his mouth and then drains the glass of milk next to the plate.  His mouth waters for the half-eaten cookie left behind, but his stomach will probably thank him later if he leaves it there.

 

“C’mon, Mrs. Claus,” he says, taking her hand.  “Let's get some sleep before the boy wakes up.”

 

Scully pulls on his hand a little as she stretches to reach her hot chocolate to take upstairs with her.  “Ten bucks says he's up before the sun rises,” she said, trailing him up the stairs with her fingers in the back pocket of his jeans.

 

“I'll take that bet.”

 

Scully slides between the sheets with a medical journal as Mulder readies himself for bed.  She doesn’t finish her hot chocolate; leaves the half-empty mug on her nightstand to grow cold.  Mulder flops down beside her and immediately rolls over to lay his arm across her lap and pull her hip towards him.  She tosses aside the medical journal and snaps the light off before she snuggles down.

 

Mulder falls asleep sometime after Scully.  He’s awakened by a light tug on his hand that dangles off the side of the bed and he opens his eyes to find his son standing next to him.  Will pulls on Mulder’s arm with all his five-year-old strength allows and whispers ‘Daddy’ with unrestrained excitement.  Mulder grunts and Will drops his hand to lean against the bed.

 

“Daddy,” Will whispers in Mulder’s ear.  “Did Santa come?”

 

Mulder grunts again and snakes his arm around Will’s waist, pulling him up into bed as he rolls over.  Will clamors up Mulder’s chest and puts his small hands on Mulder’s face.  He pulls one of Mulder’s eyelids up with his thumb and whispers again.  “Daddy, wake up.”

 

The room is grey.  Mulder yawns and hugs a squirming Will down against his chest.  “Still dark,” Mulder mumbles.  “Go back to sleep.”

 

“Daaaaaaaddyyyyyyy,” Will whines.

 

“Don’t wake up Mommy.”

 

“Mommy’s awake,” Scully slurs.  

 

Will manages to wiggle out of Mulder’s arms and his bony knees and elbows jab Mulder in the ribs as he scrambles to crawl onto Scully.  Scully makes an ‘oof’ noise and wraps one arm around Will, the other drops across the bed and her wrist hits Mulder in the chest.  He covers her hand and rubs the inside of her arm from wrist to elbow, already on the verge of falling back to sleep.

 

“I wanna see if Santa came!” Will exclaims and Mulder startles.

 

Scully squeezes Mulder’s hand lightly.  “You owe me ten dollars,” she mumbles as she struggles to sit up.

 

Will crawls backwards, back over Mulder to drop off the side of the bed.  He jumps from one foot to the other impatiently, spiky bedhead hair a spitting image of his father’s.  One cuff of his Star Wars pj’s is pulled up past his knee.  Scully pushes Mulder up until he is sitting on the side of the bed and Will is tugging on his hand again.

 

“All right, we’re up,” Mulder says.

 

“Come on, come on!”  Will bounces with excitement.

 

Mulder staggers after his son, rubbing the back of his head and yawning.  Scully is behind them, pulling on her robe.  Mulder grips Will’s hand on the stairs, afraid he’s moving too fast in his excitement and that he’ll tumble.  Will pulls his hand free when they reach the bottom and races over to the Christmas tree around the corner.

 

“He came!” Will yells.  “Daddy, look, this says ‘to Will, from Santa!’  It’s for me!”

 

“I see, Buddy.”

 

“Can I open it?”

 

“Go for it,” Mulder says through a yawn, slumping into the couch.

Scully kneels next to the tree on the other side of Will as he tears through his first present.  The wrapping paper goes flying and Scully makes a sluggish effort to collect the scraps into a pile before it gets out of control.

 

“LEGOs!” Will yells.  “It’s the fire truck!

 

Scully gives up on mess maintenance after the third gift opened and joins Mulder on the couch.  She leans against him and he puts his arm around her and they watch Will excitedly rip and shred his way through the gifts laid out for him.

 

“He’ll be zonked out as soon as the wrapping paper hits the floor on the last present,” Mulder whispers in her ear.  “Double or nothing.”

 

“I think I’ll buy myself a new pair of shoes with all the money you’re gonna owe me,” Scully replies, raising her arm up slightly and turning her hand up to him.  Mulder tickles her palm with his fingertips.

 

Will has torn through all the presents with his name on them.  He clutches the LEGO box to his chest and climbs up onto the couch between his parents, wiggling to make room between them for him.  He sighs and Scully strokes his hair.

 

“Santa’s the best,” Will says.  “I told him I wanted the LEGO fire truck and he brought it to me.”

 

“He knew you were a good boy all year,” Scully says.

 

“Yeah, I was!”

 

Scully snorts softly and Mulder chuckles.  Will hugs his LEGO box tighter and within minutes, he’s asleep.  Mulder nudges Scully’s shoulder and then nods his head down at Will.  Scully smiles and places a kiss on Will’s temple.

 

“You owe me twenty bucks,” Mulder says, reaching his hand out across his son, palm up.

 

Scully slides her hand into Mulder’s and rubs the center of his pal with her thumb.  “Guess we're even,” she says.

 

Mulder keeps his hand in hers for awhile and then slips it free. He eases himself off the couch, careful not to disturb Will, though a team of wild horses generally couldn't wake his son once he was asleep.  He takes Scully's stocking off the mantle and brings it over to her as she raises her brow.

 

“I think Santa may have left you something in there,” he says.

 

Scully massages the toe end of the stocking with one hand as Mulder carefully extracts the LEGO box from under Will’s arm and sets it on the coffee table.  She eyes him suspiciously and he shrugs, sitting back down and putting his arm around her again.  She tips the stocking over and lets the contents slide out into her waiting hand.  The box lands first, upside down, followed by a slew of foil-wrapped chocolates that fall into her lap.

 

“Well, Santa didn’t put those there,” he says.

 

“Mrs. Claus must have stopped by before her husband.”  She unwraps a chocolate and pops it in her mouth.

 

“For breakfast, Scully?”

 

“I’ll eat what I want on Christmas, thank you very much.”

 

Mulder squeezes her shoulder a little.  “Open the box.”

 

She peels the bow off the box and sticks it on Mulder’s cheek.  He grimaces and scrapes it off his cheek to flick across the room at the pile of wrapping by the tree.  She chuckles, sliding her nail under the small bit of tape at the bottom of the box.  Under the wrapping is a small, white box.

 

“Mulder, what did you do?”

 

“I don’t know, what did I do?”

 

She looks at him as she takes the top off the box and then looks to see what’s inside.  “Oh,” she breathes, lifting a necklace from the soft cotton bedding inside.  The gold chain held a small gold heart inside of a slightly larger gold heart.  Dangling inside the smaller heart was an emerald.

 

“It’s Will’s birthstone,” Mulder says.

 

“I know,” she answers, opening the clasp and bending her neck so she can put it on.  She pulls her cross out from under the neck of her pajamas so the new necklace and the old one rest next to each other on her chest.

 

“Do you like it?” he asks.

 

Scully turns to look at him and leans over Will to kiss Mulder lightly on the lips.  When he tries to pull away, she puts her hand on the back of his head and pulls him closer.

 

“Mrs. Claus, are you trying to seduce me?” he murmurs against her mouth.

 

She pulls away, checks to make sure Will is still sleeping, and then leans back in to caress the side of his face with her nose and parted lips.  At his ear, she whispers, “If you can make it through the day without killing my brother, I just might have something you can unwrap later tonight.”

 

“Mrs. Claus, are you trying to bribe me?” he whispers back.

 

“Will it work?”

 

“Like a charm.”

 

She smiles and kisses his jaw.

 

“What time do we have to be at your moms’?” he asks.

 

“Anytime after one.”

 

“Good, plenty of time for a Christmas nap.”  He stands, stretches, and then leans down and picks Will up from the couch.

 

“Santa?” Will mumbles.

 

“Shhh.”  Mulder shifts Will higher so his head rests comfortably on his shoulder and rubs Will’s back.  He reaches his hand out to Scully and she collects the chocolate pieces in her lap and pours them back into the stocking before she lets him pull her to her feet.  “Bet you ten bucks we can get another three hours in,” he says.

 

“Two, tops,” she answers, leading them up the stairs and swatting at Mulder’s hands as he tries to pull on the ties of her robe from behind her.

 

Instead of taking Will into his room, Mulder brings him into theirs and deposits him in the middle of the bed.  Scully raises her brows as she slips out of her robe.

 

“Trying to lose your own bet?” she asks.

 

“It's Christmas,” he says.

 

She has no objection to a family nap. Will kicks and tosses, but interrupted sleep is a small sacrifice considering he's only little and cuddly for so long.  He won't want to crawl into bed and snuggle with them for very much longer.  Mulder recently told her the thought of it makes him sad.

 

Scully slides into bed and kisses Will's warm cheek.  As Mulder climbs in on the other side, she raises up on her elbow and reaches over to grasp his jaw.  He leans over and kisses her softly.

 

“Merry Christmas, Santa,” she whispers.

 

“Merry Christmas, Mrs. Claus.”

 

The End

  
  
  
  



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